Quality beats freebies

Mar 12, 2013, 23:49 IST
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Hassan M Kamal

Much has been happening in the low-end tablet segment, dominated so far by Indian companies. So, when we heard that ASUS is launching the MeMo Pad in India, we couldn't wait to take a closer look into it. Here's what we found out

It’s stylish and looks sturdy when compared to any other under-10k tablets until now. Powered by a 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM, MeMo performs well, in almost everything. We tested the Prince of Persia Classic on the MeMo, and faced no glitch. Even the motion sensor is quite good, and worked well in Temple Run.

The one megapixel front camera, however, was disappointing especially because it doesn’t let you control anything at all, not even exposure, sensitivity or zoom. The battery backup, however, is the best in class. It lasted for six and a half hours while browsing. The on the go (OTG) USB cable is something that comes very handy.

The ten-finger touch offers unmatchable precision when using Paint

Touch to play The screen, although not the best from ASUS (Memo comes with a substandard 167 ppi 1024x600 screen), it’s at par with most tablets in the same price range. We were a bit disappointed with the colour reproduction and pixels, which at times seemed broken. But the 10-point touch gives it an edge over others, especially while using an app like Paint (check picture) — and let us assure you painting using touch is real fun.

Stingy? The Memo offers no headphones, lacks Bluetooth and doesn’t support an external hard disk. And is really stingy in terms of offering useful apps like a text editor or even free social networking apps like Facebook or Twitter. Although, the inbuilt file manager was impressive, the MeMo could have done better. The MeMo also comes bundled with a 5GB lifetime cloud space, which we don’t see attracting anyone especially considering services like Google Drive is available for free.

At Rs 9,999, Memo comes across as an expensive offering, more so because it doesn’t come with features like HDMI, Bluetooth or 3G Sim calling facility or support to an external hard disk, or comes packed with loads of apps — goodies that most Indian companies offer to attract buyers — but what it does guarantee is good quality in the little that it offers. If you can live with that, we say go for it.